Many of the complaints that were thrown up during the October market crash centred on the impossibility of getting current price information as everyone dashed to access the same Topic pages at the same time, but the London International Stock Exchange is hard at work to alleviate the problem. It has added to its existing Convergent Technology Unix machines by ordering three Sequent Balance 21000s and one Balance 8000 from Compass Peripheral Systems Ltd. Two of the larger machines will be used for the Exchange’s Company News Service; the initial Convergent Technologies system was acquired in October 1986. The 10 processor NS32000-based parallel machines will be used to provide on-line news services for the Topic system. A third 21000, running Ingres database software will maintain a database for the newly formed Securities Associadion. All three will be upgraded to the newer 80386-based Symmetry systems once these begin shipping in December, says Sequent. The Balance 8000 computer, this time running Oracle software, will be used for the Stock Exchange’s personnel files. Sequent computers were chosen because of the need for large and fast-expanding databases, says Compass. However, Convergent equipment is still being bought: original supplier TIS reports two more orders for S Series machines for the markets and audit services departments, which it says brings the total number of TIS systems installed to 16.
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